from the there's-no-'innovate'-in-'exclusive-contract' dept

EA Games has agreed to a $27 million settlement for charges of price-fixing related to its NFL, NCAA and (lawl) Arena Football League games. While this may come as somewhat a relief to purchasers of EA games, it's highly unlikely that this will result in EA changing its core strategy. It certainly doesn't seem to have had any affect on EA's exclusive license with the NFL (which continues through 2013), a deal that was the impetus for this lawsuit.

Those who bought games for a PlayStation 2, original Xbox or Nintendo GameCube could receive up to $6.79 per title. Games purchased for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii will garner a $1.95 refund, reports USA Today.

In a statement, law firm Hagens Berman says EA will create a $27 million fund for players who purchased a recent copy of any Madden NFL, NCAA Football or Arena Football title.

The larger payout for older platforms is likely due to the event that led to EA locking down an exclusive deal to publish Madden Roster Update as the sole representative of the National Football League.

Way back in 2004, 2K Sports released ESPN NFL 2K5 at the extremely friendly price point of $19.99, or under half the price of EA's game, which debuted at the normal $50. Not only did it beat Madden in the price war (and force EA to drop Madden's price to $29.99), but in many critics' estimation, it was a superior game, especially in terms of presentation.

EA felt threatened by this move and responded the way any corporation that would go on to hold the title of "Worst Company in America" would: by throwing its considerable weight around and locking down an exclusive deal with the NFL. No doubt the NFL was also worried, having momentarily been associated with a budget-priced game. Hence, nothing but Madden until 2013 and this lawsuit, which was filed in 2010.

The NFL's vice president of consumer products, Gene Goldberg, said at the time that he wasn't concerned that EA's monopoly would result in stagnation, stating that there is "a lot of self-imposed pressure to make [Madden] stand out in a robust and diverse marketplace." Maybe so, but I would imagine that EA's flagship football game would have improved much more dramatically with a high-quality competitor constantly breathing down its (overpriced) neck. 2K Sports' product was so far ahead of Madden at the time that gamers still find it to be a better experience than Madden 11.

This isn't EA's only NFL-related lawsuit, either. U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg just gave the go-ahead for former NFL players to seek class-action status in their lawsuit against EA for using their likenesses in Madden NFL games. EA had hoped to avoid this sort of situation by stripping names and shuffling jersey numbers, but the retired players pointed out that their digital alter egos were accurate in terms of skills and physical appearance.

EA played the "stats are facts" card, quoting an earlier decision that saw Major League Baseball being told that player names and statistics are facts, and therefore cannot be copyrighted. Seeborg's ruling dismissed this claim, stating that current publicity rights laws and pointing out that Madden games show the retired players "in their conventional role as football players" and is the "digital equivalent" of "using the players' pictures to sell T-shirts."

Speaking of "couch change," the proposed settlement pales in comparison to the damages originally sought in the price-fixing lawsuit, which alleged that without the exclusive NFL deal, Madden would have been forced to price its games at a more reasonable $29.99, rather than the $50-60 we're all kind of tired of paying. This difference resulted in gamers paying an extra $701-926 million for EA sports games between 2005 and 2010.

But $27 million it is. Gamers shouldn't start counting that incoming couch change just yet though. This settlement still needs to be approved by the court, a move which could take months. While this might be of some consolation to the gamers who filed the suit, it feels more like a gesture of hands-folded-politely compliance, as if to show that EA is a "Good Corporate Citizen" and, as such, is worthy of its continued NFL-granted monopoly. And despite its exclusive client currently "entertaining" two lawsuits, the NFL doesn't seem to be interested in shopping around for new suitors, leading one to believe that it really doesn't care much for non-exclusive deals... or for its former players.

I'm still pissed about their monopoly causing the Gameday franchise to fold. I always felt it was far superior to Madden back in the day. Would love to see how it would have progressed over the years since.

You need to cover how EA's stocks have been in free-fall since this came up and how EA has had a major shareholder meeting which I'm sure ended with a few CEOs being dragged behind their own limousines.

So a private (as in not government) company (EA) paid another private company (NFL) to be an exclusive license holder? It's good that this was stopped now.

I'm a big Spiderman fan. I'd hate for this evil tactic of licensing other peoples properties to make it so that Sony had a monopoly on Spiderman movies and Activision had a monopoly of Spiderman games.

Seriously, if this had went to trial and EA lost would that mean that every license is invalid?

Re:

It is an interesting one isn't it? Without knowing anything else about the case it's hard to see exactly what the problem is here.
Also, it's hard to argue with the stats-as-facts argument - if they're not facts then they're not very good stats.
Players physical features I can understand the reasoning on though.

Re:

No, because the entire license is not being disputed. The NFL/EA deal is a huge monstrosity. Parts of copyright are being disputed. No one is disputing the NFL or Teams trademarks.

Even if by some warped out logic it was decided the NFL had no copyright claims to stand on at all, period. The trademarks would still hold and block other game makers from releasing an NFL Football game.

Not surprising

Well, considering the NFL's long history of willingly hiring known criminals as players and coaches, and doing everything possible to cover up and their crimes from the media and the public so long as said criminals are profitable for them, is anyone surprised that they're just fine with sleazebags like EA?

I've dropped any title with ElectronicArts related to it. Much like Ubisoft and others that fuck up the their customers. I couldn't dump Blizzard yet. Let us see what the next WoW expansion will do, the beta was frustrating for my shaman.

In any case, it's about time ppl started voting with their wallets. Obviously EA and the likes will complain about piracy but it's all about doing reall financial damage against these.

SquareEnix is going down the drain. They got so arrogant and mistreated their customers so bad that they finally felt the weight of their attitude.

EA Lawsuit

NFL should get out of bed with EA and jump in to bed with 2K sports 2K make better sports games I think also NCAA college Basketball should be on 2k Sports college b-ball to NBA hoops would be crazy on the 2k system

I told u so

I told as many ppl I could to stop playin nba live when 2k came out wit iverson on cover and samething when 2k came out wit Terrell Owens on cover EA SPORTS should've been folded their sports division they suck and they are gaming mafia thugz I hope america is watching